In addition to the two leads, Valeria Golino stars as Charlie's girlfriend, Susanna. Morrow created the character of Raymond after meeting Kim Peek, a real-life savant; his characterization was based on both Peek and Bill Sackter, a good friend of Morrow who was the subject of Bill, an earlier film that Morrow wrote.[2]

Contents

Charlie Babbitt is in the middle of importing four Lamborghinis to Los Angeles for resale. He needs to deliver the vehicles to impatient buyers who have already made down payments in order to repay the loan he took out to buy the cars, but the EPA is holding the cars at the port due to the cars failing emissions regulations. Charlie directs an employee to lie to the buyers while he stalls his creditor.

When Charlie learns that his estranged father has died, he and his girlfriend Susanna travel to Cincinnati, Ohio in order to settle the estate. He learns he is receiving the 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible over which he and his father fought and his father's rose bushes, but the bulk of the $3 million estate is going to an unnamed trustee. Through social engineering he learns the money is being directed to a mental institution, which he visits and meets his older brother, Raymond, whose existence he was previously unaware of.

Raymond has autism and adheres to strict routines such as always watching The People's Court, which he refers to as "Wapner" after the judge who presides over the show. He has superb recall but he shows little emotional expression except when in distress. Charlie spirits Raymond out of the mental institution and into a hotel for the night. Susanna becomes upset with the way Charlie treats his brother and leaves. Charlie asks Raymond's doctor for half the estate in exchange for Raymond's return, but he refuses. Charlie decides to attempt to gain custody of his brother in order to get control of the money.

After Raymond refuses to fly to Los Angeles because he remembers every airline crash and is worried about getting hurt, they set out on a cross-country road trip together. During the course of the journey, Charlie learns more about Raymond, including that he is a mental calculator with the ability to instantly count hundreds of objects at once, far beyond the normal range for humans. He also learns that, like him, Raymond loves The Beatles. It is revealed that Raymond actually lived with the family when Charlie was young and he realizes that the comforting figure from Charlie's childhood, whom he falsely remembered as an imaginary friend named "Rain Man", was actually Raymond, who was sent away because he had severely burned Charlie by accident as a little boy.

They make slow progress on their trip because Raymond insists on sticking to his routines, which include watching "Wapner" on television every day and getting to bed by 11:00 PM. He also objects to traveling on the interstate after they pass a bad accident.

After the Lamborghinis are seized by his creditor, Charlie finds himself $80,000 in debt and hatches a plan to return to Las Vegas, which they passed the night before, and win money at blackjack by counting cards. Though the casino bosses are skeptical that anyone can count cards with a six deck shoe, after reviewing security footage they ask Charlie and Raymond to leave. However, Charlie has made enough to cover his debts and has reconciled with Susanna who rejoined them in Las Vegas.

Back in Los Angeles, Charlie meets with Dr. Bruner, who offers him $250,000 to walk away from Raymond forever. Charlie refuses and says that he is no longer upset about what his father left him, but he wants to have a relationship with his brother. At a meeting with a court-appointed psychiatrist (Levinson, in an uncredited cameo), Raymond is shown to be unable to decide for himself what he wants. Charlie stops the questioning and tells Raymond he is happy to have him as his brother.

In the final scene, Charlie brings Raymond to the train station where he boards an Amtrak train with Dr. Bruner to return to the mental institution. Charlie promises Raymond that he will visit in two weeks.

Almost all of the principal photography occurred during the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike; one key scene that was affected by the lack of writers was the film's final scene.[2] Bass delivered his last rough cut of the script only hours before the strike started and spent no time on the set.[5]

Rain Man received mostly positive reviews from critics, with Hoffman's performance being universally praised. The film currently has a "certified fresh" score of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.8 out of 10. The critical consensus states "This road-trip movie about an autistic savant and his callow brother is far from seamless, but Barry Levinson's direction is impressive, and strong performances from Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman add to its appeal."[8]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times called Rain Man a "becomingly modest, decently thought-out, sometimes funny film"; Hoffman's performance was a "display of sustained virtuosity . . . [which] makes no lasting connections with the emotions. Its end effect depends largely on one's susceptibility to the sight of an actor acting nonstop and extremely well, but to no particularly urgent dramatic purpose."[9] Canby considered the "film's true central character" to be "the confused, economically and emotionally desperate Charlie, beautifully played by Mr. Cruise."[9]

Amy Dawes of Variety wrote that "one of the year's most intriguing film premises ... is given uneven, slightly off-target treatment"; she called the road scenes "hastily, loosely written, with much extraneous screen time," but admired the last third of the film, calling it a depiction of "two very isolated beings" who "discover a common history and deep attachment."[6]

One of the film's harshest reviews came from New Yorker magazine critic Pauline Kael: "Everything in this movie is fudged ever so humanistically, in a perfunctory, low-pressure way. And the picture has its effectiveness: people are crying at it. Of course they're crying at it – it's a piece of wet kitsch."[10]

Rain Man debuted on December 16, 1988, and was the second highest grossing film at the weekend box office (behind Twins), with $7 million.[12] It reached the first spot on the December 30 – January 2 weekend, finishing 1988 with $42 million.[13] The film would end up as the highest-grossing U.S. film of 1988 by earning over $172 million. The film grossed over $354 million worldwide.[1]

Rain Man‍ '​s portrayal of the main character's condition has been seen as inaugurating a common and incorrect media stereotype that people on the autism spectrum typically have savant skills, and references to Rain Man, in particular Dustin Hoffman's performance, have become a popular shorthand for autism and savantism. Conversely, Rain Man has also been seen as dispelling a number of other misconceptions about autism and improving public awareness of the failure of many agencies to accommodate autistic people and make use of the abilities they do have, regardless of whether they have savant skills.[15]

The character Alan (Zach Galifianakis) in the 2009 film The Hangover learns how to count cards from a book and mentions he's like Ray in this film. Later in the film, Alan and the character Phil (Bradley Cooper) play the blackjack tables in the casino at Caesar's Palace, the scene paying homage to this film, from the way the two stand on the escalator to the song "Iko Iko".

In the third episode of the third season of Supernatural entitled "Bad Day at Black Rock", Sam gets hold of a rabbit's foot that makes him very lucky, as proven by his winning a few thousand dollars from scratch tickets. Dean remarks that they should "Do a little Rain Man".

In the fourteenth episode of the fourth season of Spin City, entitled "Casino", Mike must raise $500,000 and after realizing Paul's savant-abilities, (as a reference to the film, a bag of pretzels drops on the floor and Paul accurately states how many pretzels are on the floor) he takes Paul to the casino to count cards. In another reference to the film, Mike and Paul stand on an escalator, however, both Mike and Paul are wearing the suit donned by Tom Cruise.

During June of 1989, at least fifteen major airlines cut the airport scene from the in-flight movie version of Rain Man to avoid airplane passengers from feeling uncomfortable upon observing Raymond's fear of flying. Of those who were against this move were film director Barry Levinson, co-screenwriter Ronald Bass and George Kirgo, who at the time was the President of the Writers Guild of America, West. "I think it's a key scene to the entire movie," Levinson said in a telephone interview. "That's why it's in there. It launches their entire odyssey across country -because they couldn't fly." One particular airline, Australia's Qantas, kept the scene intact on its flights since Raymond mentions it as the only airline whose planes have "never crashed."[17][18][19][20]

In fact, the film is credited for introducing Qantas to U.S. audiences.[21][22][23][24]